SEO Case Study With Brian Dean

Last updated on July 11, 2018

In this episode you’ll learn how Brian from Backlinko made $100,000 from a 2,000 person email list, the specific metrics for optimizing YouTube videos AND 1 tactic that permanently changed OkDork after this episode.

Brian gives a ton of actionable tips to help improve your SEO and some surprises like having more pages doesn’t necessarily make your site easier to find in search engines. Get ready to take some notes because you’re going to want to use this stuff right away.

Great Podcast Noah and Brian. Does Reese peanut butter cups count as a candy bar? Had a question about the deleting of pages. Is it better to just out right delete them or should you setup a no-index instead? Is there any case studies that show this tactic to actually work?

Great ideas (I think) but I'm the newest newby there is so I don't really know what I don't know...you know? Haven't started my blog but am researching to figure out how to do this. Thanks for (hopefully) pointing me in the right direction.

Wow, great episode!
There were so many awesome and actionable ideas, but my big take-aways as a total online business newbie were:
#1 - Focus on developing truly high quality content (that's super useful to your niche audience... even if that audience isn't massive)
#2 - Play the long game, and don't be afraid to invest a lot of time/effort into a piece of content (make it evergreen) or learning something deeply
#3 - Simplify your marketing, don't overwhelm your audience
#4 -Think of what you're procrastinating on professionally, get specific, and commit to (re)learning or mastering that with a beginners mind

Instead of YouTube I am embedding private Vimeo Videos on my blog. With YouTube people get distracted with competitor content. I want people to stay with my content. How will the tactics be different for me?

Great podcast Noah! Aside from the content packed into your interviews, I also take note of how you keep the conversation flowing with relevant questions and how you sprinkle humor throughout. I have the conversational skills of a 4-year old, so your podcast provides a learning opportunity on so many levels.

They say your hair grows faster if you cut it often. I guess the same goes with content. Delete those low traffic pages and improve your SEO. Fav candy bar - Ocho bar with caramel and peanuts. I eat two of them at a time they are so good.

You're so right - "it's 'easy' to find customers when you're very specific". As a marketer who can solve a lot of different problems, that's actually a bad thing for me because people don't always "see" their problems in my solutions. But as I've niched down, I've gotten more traction. Thanks for a great episode!

I've been doing SEO for a while now but never thought about his recommendation at the end where he says to delete the pages that are not doing anything for your website. And how you retain more "link juice." Great stuff!

Great episode. I am curious about the removing old content part. Would Brian then recommend going out to Google and using their URL removal tool? Not a big candy bar fan, but I can throw down on some Swedish fish.

Noah, one underrated tactic I've noticed over the years is that you are relentless in incentivizing participation/sharing with little easter eggs. What percentage effect do you think that has had on your activities/businesses? Or is it hard to measure?

My favorite candy bar is Snickers but I haven't eaten sugar since 1989 so I bet there are way better candy bars on the market. Love the Google analytics recommendation to delete pages that aren't getting traffic.

This interview was hilarious and insightful. Just downloaded all the rest of your episodes and looking forward to binge-listening this werkend. Brian is a rockstar and love his ideas on focus and soecifically, focusing on your niche (and leaving other interests as hobbies).

Definitely a quality interview. Nice variety of content and actionable tips. Can't wait to apply some of them, though probably not the 90 day year thing. I don't really get it. If you can get it done in 90 days, shouldn't you set a bigger goal? What are you supposed to do for the rest of the year?

I think it's an awesome concept. The point is that focusing on a big goal for completion in 90 days means you eliminate most or all of your wasted time. If you analysed your week, you would probably find that you waste at least 50% of your time doing things that aren't important.

Noah, I've been following you're content for two years, now I started my own project of Online Marketing for Entrepreneurs (less than a month and already a client), thanks a lot for everything. We will keep using you're material to improve our project.
Very good material, we have to work in our SEO ASAP to start growing our site traffic.
Thanks again!

PS: We are from Argentina, so yes, you are inspiring people worldwide!

I listened last night. Good stuff. I've done a lot of work on my sites, but I've never deleted a ton of comment at once like Brian recommends. But my sites are almost 10 years old, so I'm sure there is a ton of content I can kill.

Was this the one tactic you used to permanently improve OK Dork? Or was it focusing on on your strengths of having experts write about their area of expertise?

As a side note, and as a non-expert, I would suggest making these shows a bit shorter. There was a lot of good stuff in this one, but as I had some other browser windows open and multi-tasking online is super challenging, I lost some of the last half of the show. Just sayin'...

If not overwhelming your customers is a target then I'm sad to say you've failed. Too much content, delivered far to quickly. I'm old and slow (er 50) and probably missed 50% of what was said. There again, the other 50% was useful (in an American way...). Does repetition of the same number (50) help? Yup, that was 50.

I loved this podcast. I am in a very niche market so when he talked about getting bored, it really resonated with me. I find that sometimes I get bored but I think it has more to do with me and my itch to always do something new not so much the content aspect. If that makes sense. Thanks for all that you do.

Brian is a genius! Tons of inspiring stuff in this ep. Learned a lot during his breakout session at SumoCon too. I think this is a excellent type of guest to have in the future. Basically, anyone of the speakers from SumoCon would be great.

Info from this episode was great. Instead of rewinding a bunch to relisten I set the podcast to 1/2 speed. The 90-day year sounds like something I want to try. At least using it as a time frame for project goals.

I really got a lot out of listening to this podcast today. It wasn't a core part of what you talked about, but Brian made the idea of writing and promoting content seem less daunting somehow. Also his course references for Youtube engagement are now on my list of things to check out.